---Tape on my wheel wells----

[getnpsi]

Pipe dream: 15-20hp electric motor powering a mazda miata or other small rear end in back. Electrics love direct drive no problem there really. Once you are rolling turn off the engine and operate motor with a hand throttle. Only takes 15-20hp to operate the car at highway speeds. Will not use nearly as many batteries (or their size anyway)as a dedicated forklift descended frankenstein car.

[Darlo]

My sunvisors were mostly broken anyway, and I never used them.....

[MonkeyGein]

the eco modders suggest removing your wipers.

[sasquatch]

the amount of drag you could take off by removing your door handles and wind shild wipers is so small... and the cost of it (to do it right....) would be more than the amount of gas you would save.... if i was going for super fuel savings, i would put a zeitronix wideband on the car to see what the afr's are, get a good idea of what they are... the zeitronix box has a narrow band output to the factory ecu that will cause the motor to run lean (only a little bit...) and if it still isnt lean enough you could put on a safc and lean it out as much as you want... its easy to fool the stock computer, you just need to know how... im sure with some mods like this a festiva could see alot more mpg, no problem...

[Basement_Modder]

Let me clarify some things:

1-the oil change thing: I would have left a hole in the underbody below the oil cap if it was welded in.

2- the wheel bolt thing: I didn't mean only hold the whole rim on with one bolt, that would be stupid. I just meant only hve 1 or 2 of the 4 bolts go through the hubcap as well, and the rest just under the hubcap directly on the rim, so that there's less indents in the hubcap.

I never said any of this was totally practical, just doable.

[FestYboy]

ahh i see what you're getting at now, sorry for ranting.

[Darlo]

Haha, I think I am going to try a alternator delete before removing wipers or bolts from the wheels, lol.........

I hope to save 5%-10% from the alt delete........Just run from 2-3 Deep cycles.....

[Basement_Modder]

That may work, but you should leave your alternator installed without a serpentine belt and keep a belt and an extra battery in the trunk just in case. Don't want to accidentally kill your batteries and not be able to go anywhere...

[htchbck]

Don't forget if you ditch the alt you will need some sort of tensioner for the WP pulley. In the stock system the Alt is the tensioner for the WP/ALT belt. Not saying it won't work, just don't forget to keep that belt on there

[crazyrog17]

I know the XFi Metro or one of the Civics had a system that would cut out the alternator's load when some parameters were met like less than 10amps load, higher than 13V in the battery etc...

I wonder how hard it would be to program a small micro controller to sense these parameters and cut out the alternator on a Festiva?

[Pu241]

I don't think you have to physically disconnect the Alt to gain some benefit.
Just electrically disconnect it.
Then the Alt can not draw power to build the needed field used to generate power.
No need to rig a Water Pump tensioner in place of the ALT.
Also if you do it right you just throw a switch and you'll have power from the ALT back on line.
You wont get the maximum fuel savings from this as you still have mechanical losses through the belt and Alt bearings, but those should be relatively small in comparison to a fuctioning ALT.

[crazyrog17]

I don't think you have to physically disconnect the Alt to gain some benefit.
Just electrically disconnect it.
Then the Alt can not draw power to build the needed field used to generate power.
No need to rig a Water Pump tensioner in place of the ALT.
Also if you do it right you just throw a switch and you'll have power from the ALT back on line.
You wont get the maximum fuel savings from this as you still have mechanical losses through the belt and Alt bearings, but those should be relatively small in comparison to a fuctioning ALT.

Right, that's what I'm saying too.

[htchbck]

John I agree 100%, but they were talking about removing the alt BELT, not just removing the circuit from the vehicles electrical system. I like Crazyrog's idea but thats way over my head electronically. I'm great with internal combustion, in/lbs, suspension geometry... with picofarads, micro-controllers and rheostats,* not so much


* I just put those words there because they are electrical in nature, I do not know what they mean :lol:

[Darlo]

Not be dissagreeable.......but a few guys on ecomodder.com found that you get the biggest (like double) the savings when you completely bypass the alternator, not just electronically. And since it would be pretty easy to do in the festiva.....I will do it that way, and just find a belt that fits between the water pump pully and the other one......

[MonkeyGein]

how long can you go on a deep cycle?
how bout a nice spring and a lever and loosen the alt, pull the lever to release the load? pr all that to a tension pully
i thought botu a alt cutout switch and pulse and glide. but i did the pulse and glide one night and the shock to the alt burned out the regulator and alt